Laura Truffaut

Laura Truffaut shares her memories of her legendary filmmaker father.

When Francois Truffaut approached Alfred Hitchcock in 1962 with the idea of having a long conversation with him about his work and publishing this in book form, he didn't imagine that more than four years would pass before Le Cinéma selon Hitchcock finally appeared in 1966. Not only in France but all over the world, Truffaut's Hitchcock interview developed over the years into a standard bible of film literature. In 1983, three years after Hitchcock's death, Truffaut decided to expand his by now legendary book to include a concluding chapter and have it published as the "Edition définitive". This film describes the genesis of the "Hitchbook" and throws light on the strange friendship between two completely different men. The centrepieces are the extracts from the original sound recordings of the interview with the voices of Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, and Helen Scott – recordings which have never been heard in public before.

A fascinating glimpse into Truffaut’s creative process and how his life informed his art, told from the perspectives of those who knew him best.

Various experiences of childhood are seen in several sequences that take place in the small town of Thiers, France. Vignettes include a boy's awakening interest in girls, couples double-dating at the movies, brothers giving their friend a haircut, a boy dealing with an abusive home life, a baby and a cat sitting by an open window, a child telling a dirty joke, and a boy who develops a crush on his friend's mother.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Claude Roc, a young middle-class Frenchman meets in Paris Ann Brown, a young Englishwoman. They become friends and Ann invites him to spend holidays at the house where she lives with her mother and her sister Muriel, for whom she intends Claude. During these holidays, Claude, Ann and Muriel become very close and he gradually falls in love with Muriel. But both families lay down a one-year-long separation without any contact before agreeing to the marriage. So Claude goes back to Paris when he has many love affairs before sending Muriel a break-off letter...

In 1798, a feral boy is discovered outside the town of Aveyron, France. Diagnosed as mentally impaired, he is relegated to an asylum. A young doctor named Jean Itard becomes convinced that the boy has normal mental capacity, but that his development was hindered by lack of contact with society. He brings the boy home and begins an arduous attempt at education over several years.